The wars between the "OTHER PRIMATES OPEN THEM FROM THE SMALL END" faction versus the "BUT THE LITTLE BIT OF BANANA AT THE SMALL END IS GROSS" faction consumed Europe for generations.

Splitters! I wasn't aware these were separate camps, I've been hanging out with the Banana Ecumenicals who claim that other primates open from the small end because they don't like the butt-end of the banana either, and opening from the small end removes it. Everyone in my extended family has converted.

jozwa wrote:I don't open it from the small end because it's easier to use the handle and when you're done the butt-end stays in the peel and you don't have to eat it.

Heresy! The handle is for holding the fruit while eating; otherwise you're holding the small end in your fingertips while trying to avoid having the butt-end come out of the peel with the last of the fruit. You're only doing it that way because you were educated stupid. Repent, and you too can enjoy the benefits of using the handle as evolution intended!

I've thrown out all my socks and replaced them with the same kind before. Need to do it again soon, picked up various non-standard socks over the years and have it's made pairing them up after doing laundry difficult again.

All of it? I'm immune to these banana wars because I make a point of not eating them. I don't know how something can impart such great flavor to everything else (that is to say, most banana-flavored stuff is great, including dried banana chips) and yet itself be so nasty and have an ok-to-eat window of like two hours. Science refuses to tackle the tough questions like these.

There's a structure in the meat of the fruit at the blossom end that sometimes does, sometimes doesn't break off when you peel down from the stem end. It's kinda woodier than the rest of the meat, and the flavor is unpleasantly strong. Separating it from the rest of the fruit leaves a belly-button-like structure on the rest of the meat. No reputable dictionary would have a word for this, so of course the urbandictionary site has had it listed under bananus since 2003.

J%r wrote:Doesn't opening a banana from the small end make you end up with banana peal underneath your fingernails?

If it's ripe enough no fingernail are required. If you have to break the skin with a cutting tool (fingernails, knife, etc) before it will peel from the blossom end it's not ready to eat yet.

Zinho wrote:Splitters! I wasn't aware these were separate camps, I've been hanging out with the Banana Ecumenicals who claim that other primates open from the small end because they don't like the butt-end of the banana either, and opening from the small end removes it. Everyone in my extended family has converted.

Yes, this. The gross bit is *easier* to get rid of when you open it from the small end. If it doesn't come off during the peel then you see it and go, "Oh yeah, I hate that bit. Better get rid of it before I start eating." Whereas when I was opening from the stem I'd forget about it and sometimes accidentally eat it.

sonar1313 wrote:... I'm immune to these banana wars because I make a point of not eating them. I don't know how something can impart such great flavor to everything else (that is to say, most banana-flavored stuff is great, including dried banana chips) and yet itself be so nasty and have an ok-to-eat window of like two hours. Science refuses to tackle the tough questions like these.

It could be you have a taste for the Plantain bananas, which IMO are pretty nasty except after cooking. If you bypass the giant display of Cavendish, your grocers' probably has some Plaintains as well you could try.

Apparently the original Gros Michel bananas taste more like banana flavouring and after being wiped out in the 50s by fungus, are trying to make a comeback with resistant breeds, shipping mostly to Japan at the moment.

Mutex wrote:I've thrown out all my socks and replaced them with the same kind before. Need to do it again soon, picked up various non-standard socks over the years and have it's made pairing them up after doing laundry difficult again.

Just got back to one-sock mode. The last time I'd bought socks they looked all black in the store, but turned out to have little coloured squares above the ankle. In various colours. SO disappointing...

I was just takling a few days ago about how I prefer Farenheit "Celsius degrees are just too big!" but would be cool with swtichign to Metric everywhere else.And I just opened a banana that I'm still in the middle of and thought to myself "why can't I break myself of this stupid human inferior banana opening!?"But both things are in my head due to a dude who says "centigrade" ....

"She’s a free spirit, a wind-rider, she’s at one with nature, and walks with the kodama eidolons”

pkcommando wrote:How far to the right do you put those weirdos who insist on having their toilet paper hanging down on the back side of the roll, in the Under position?

Depends on who you ask. There's a poll running right now where the underhand folks are barely making a showing in the comment section, so they don't seem very publicly vocal. On the flip side, you've got Wikipedia saying that ~40 percent of people prefer the under orientation, and that married couples frequently argue about it. It seems to be one of those things that's a non-issue until someone does it WRONG in your presence; then it's ON.

My mom had me diagnosed with OCD because I cared about toilet paper orientation as a teenager and neither she nor dad understood why anyone would care about something like that, so finding out as an adult that other people care too (even if 40% of them are wrong) is a huge relief.

Pfhorrest wrote:My mom had me diagnosed with OCD because I cared about toilet paper orientation as a teenager and neither she nor dad understood why anyone would care about something like that, so finding out as an adult that other people care too (even if 40% of them are wrong) is a huge relief.

Mutex wrote:I've thrown out all my socks and replaced them with the same kind before. Need to do it again soon, picked up various non-standard socks over the years and have it's made pairing them up after doing laundry difficult again.

Just got back to one-sock mode. The last time I'd bought socks they looked all black in the store, but turned out to have little coloured squares above the ankle. In various colours. SO disappointing...

Mutex wrote:I've thrown out all my socks and replaced them with the same kind before. Need to do it again soon, picked up various non-standard socks over the years and have it's made pairing them up after doing laundry difficult again.

Just got back to one-sock mode. The last time I'd bought socks they looked all black in the store, but turned out to have little coloured squares above the ankle. In various colours. SO disappointing...

But how do you balance wear when you can't tell pairs apart?

By applying stochasticism of course! Or was it stoicism?Whatever, at some point the holes take up more than half the surface area of a sock, so you throw that one away.

Currently, I have 4 different sets of black socks. They're optically barely distinguishable, but dammit does it annoy me when I put on two socks from different sets. Laundry now takes some extra time to group the socks.

Flumble wrote:Currently, I have 4 different sets of black socks. [...] Laundry now takes some extra time to group the socks.

And modern detergents whiten your clothes by adding blue color with "optical brightening agents", since white clothes tend to wear yellowish rather than bluish. (Actually cleaning the clothing is too hard; coloring it is easier.)

So your black socks eventually become navy-blue socks. Not helped by males having poor color discernment in that part of the spectrum.

I've bought "navy blue" socks that have a brighter blue line around the top of the cuff, so you can tell your black and navy-blue socks apart after a few washes.

Mutex wrote:I've thrown out all my socks and replaced them with the same kind before. Need to do it again soon, picked up various non-standard socks over the years and have it's made pairing them up after doing laundry difficult again.

I have all white socks. One day I wasted a considerable amount of time trying to find a matching pair.

I am Lord Titanius Englesmith, Fancyman of Cornwood.See 1 Kings 7:23 for pi.If you put a prune in a juicer, what would you get?

Sometimes trying to open a banana from the stem end goes very wrong and you end up squashing it etc. to get it open. However, I've never managed to open one from the other end without getting a significant amount of dirt under my fingernails, so stem it is.

Mutex wrote:I've thrown out all my socks and replaced them with the same kind before. Need to do it again soon, picked up various non-standard socks over the years and have it's made pairing them up after doing laundry difficult again.

Just got back to one-sock mode. The last time I'd bought socks they looked all black in the store, but turned out to have little coloured squares above the ankle. In various colours. SO disappointing...

But how do you balance wear when you can't tell pairs apart?

I have about two weeks worth of socks, and put the clean ones at the bottom of my sock drawer when putting them away, so all my socks get roughly equal use.

More than 30 posts and nobody has mentioned the metric units religious war yet? It's about time!

For me this issue is one of the most offensive forms of US anti-intellectualism in that it affects intellectuals too. I have yet to encounter an educated american creationist yet a lot of pretty smart folks have managed to convince themselves that either "imperial is not that bad" or the less extreme but still embarrassing "it may be worse but it will be too complicated to change to metric so let's not bother". Well, guess what, the UK did it - and only half want to reverse it post brexit... wait, what? I'm off to read a book about some other universe, I find this one too confusing.

pkcommando wrote:How far to the right do you put those weirdos who insist on having their toilet paper hanging down on the back side of the roll, in the Under position?

Wait, there's an argument about this? If you have cats or small children and don't like a huge pile of toilet paper lurking beneath an empty cardboard tube, you run it down the back. Otherwise you run it over the top for easy, spin-and-grab access.

Only about a half of us (who voted, about a third of us who could vote and maybe around a quarter of everyone who would have to live with the result) voted for Brexit, so 'just' half of everyone these lot asked wanting to work with pounds and ounces isn't too far off matching the entire Leave camp directly relating to everything going back to days of yore...

That survey reminds me: I still need to track down a 100W incandescent bulb, or find a dimmer-compatible alternative from the newer lot. Either that or replace the dimming wall-switch (so it doesn't get used) and go with the option of replacing the bulb in there now with a full-voltage LED one with internal dimming/hue-changing circuitry and remote controller.